Fisherian Runaway, The case of the Babirusa

Many of us in the mgtow world are familiar with the term fisherian runaway, an evolutionary concept first theorized by biologist Ronald Fisher. Stardusk talked about it here. Essentially it is a form of runaway selection taking place over millennia of evolutionary pressures where females in sexually dimorphic species select traits in males that are harmful to them as desirable. The most notable example is the now extinct Irish Elk, a species of deer whose antlers became so exceedingly large due to the selection of the females for large antlers that the males could not keep up with the nutrient debt of having to grow them.

This resulted in their eventual demise.

An interesting present day case of this phenomenon can be found in the Babirusa. An Indonesian species of pig whose tusks grow so large that they can actually curve into it’s own skull killing the beast by piercing its brain.

Needless to say the females find the males with the bigger tusks more desirable. The above image shows an actual babirusa skull who met his end in such a way, a video of the males sparring with each other can be watched below.

Many a mgtow has made the comparison between human gender relations and fisherian runaway. The question has always been — to what degree are women selecting for traits in men that could potentially bring about the demise of our species. Although I do not spend my time whining that “women are choosing thugs and badboys” or any of that nonsense. I do think that we must introduce female-less reproduction (aka ectogenesis) as an evolutionary buffer against the rapacious female breeding instinct. A little bit of competition never hurt anyone, why not give the female breeding instinct some competition in the form of an artificial womb?

Checkout the African Willow Bird…in that case, the female has a soft spot for the male´s long tail and will mate with the one who has the longest. This however makes the males very clumsy fliers and as such easy pray for predators. As of now the two forces: female preference vs environmental realities are still at work…We´ll find out who wins in a couple of thousand years.

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